Multilinguisme, multiculturalisme et pratique traduisante au sein de l'Union Européenne

Abstract

In theory, multilingualism is supposed to promote multiculturalism but is it really the case in the EU context? The aim of this paper is to explore translation strategies when rendering culture-specific elements, such as metaphors and figurative language. More specifically, we intent to test whether the neutralising tendencies already observed during the translation into Greek language are also valid for other language combinations. For this purpose, we analyse a corpus of texts in five languages selected from the European Parliament Proceedings. Our results will show that neutralising phenomena are observed in all language pairs irrespectively. Is this tendency related to this particular text type? Is it the result of systemic differences between languages or does it constitute a translational strategy? This article attempts to shed light on these questions.